Read The Murders at Astaire Castle (A Mac Faraday Mystery) Online

Authors: Lauren Carr

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The Murders at Astaire Castle (A Mac Faraday Mystery) (10 page)

BOOK: The Murders at Astaire Castle (A Mac Faraday Mystery)
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David chose to stand over them. “Mr. Hollister, can I assume you didn’t come to Spencer for the spa, but because Damian Wagner’s body was found at the castle yesterday?”

“That’s exactly why I’m here,” the literary agent said. “Damian Wagner was more than an author, he was my friend.”

“Not to mention the goose that laid the golden eggs,” Mac said. “Do you have any idea who would have killed Wagner, his daughter, and editor?”

“They say insanity sometimes runs in the genes,” Hollister said. “Anyone who read Damian Wagner’s books—”

“I’ve read all of them,” Mac said. “Damian Wagner wasn’t insane. He had a brilliant imagination. To say that he was insane is like saying my mother, Robin Spencer, was a homicidal maniac.”

“Robin Spencer was your mother?” Raymond Hollister turned to look Mac straight in the eye. “Oh, yeah, you’re
that
Mac Faraday, Robin Spencer’s love child.”

“Yes, I am.”

“I was her agent when she first started out,” Raymond said. “She dumped me as soon as she hit the big leagues. Damian Wagner knew the definition of the word loyalty.”

“I guess it’s all a matter of perception,” Mac said. “You did petition the courts to have Damian Wagner declared legally dead so that you could inherit his estate.”

“I know what you’re both thinking.” Raymond Hollister gestured with his finger to point from Mac to David and then back again.

“Tell us what we’re thinking,” David said.

“I had the biggest motive for killing Damian Wagner and his daughter,” the agent said. “Yes, we had a legal agreement, a standard legal agreement that a lot of authors have with their literary agents.”

“I’m not an author,” Mac said. “So fill me in. What was this standard agreement?”

“I inherited the copyrights for Damian Wagner’s books upon his death,” Raymond Hollister said. “Since his daughter, his only heir, was murdered as well, then there’s no one to make a claim to the rights for his books.”

“His books are still selling world-wide,” Mac said. “You must be making millions.”

“Yes, I’ve been doing very well,” Raymond Hollister said with a grin. “And, seeing that you are both very smart men, I won’t pretend. When Wagner’s last book is located, it’s mine. Every publisher in New York will be making bids to publish it—we’re talking millions of dollars. And, with the publishing of that book, sales on Damian Wagner’s previous books will skyrocket.”

“And you will be even richer,” Mac said.

“Yes,” Raymond Hollister said. “Did you find Damian Wagner’s book?”

“No,” David said.

“That’s bad for me.”

“Could that be why you killed him and his daughter?” Mac said. “So that you would inherit the rights to his book and get rich off of his work?”

“I didn’t kill Damian Wagner or his daughter.”

“You pointed it out yourself,” David said, “with Genie dead, there’s no one to fight you for those rights.”

“Damian Wagner’s life was a tragedy,” Raymond said. “After his wife was killed in that unfortunate car accident, in which he was driving, he blamed himself and gave up custody of Geneviève, who was fourteen years old at the time. It was a miracle she wasn’t killed. She was in the back seat when he rammed into that utility pole. He wallowed in self-pity for a couple of years and then got sober. By the time he got out of rehab, he read in the media that Geneviève and her grandparents were killed in a ferry boat accident up in Canada. Damian stopped writing and all of his money was gone. His publisher was about to cut him loose because he didn’t believe there was going to be a last book to complete the series. On the off chance that the reports of Genevieve’s death were wrong, I hired a private investigator to find her—and he did. It was a miracle. When Genevieve came back into Damian Wagner’s life, suddenly, he was able to write again.”

Mac grinned. “Which was good for you because you made how much from his royalties?”

“Fifteen percent at that time.”

“Now, you get one-hundred percent,” David said.

“That’s right,” Raymond said without shame. “Look, I’m not the monster here. I supported Damian for years when he was producing nothing. Bill Jansen was young and hungry. He was just starting to get a reputation as an editor. I got him the job to work for Wagner.”

“And Wagner’s daughter—” Mac shot a glance in David’s direction. “What about her? You found her and brought her to Spencer to be murdered.”

“I reunited a family.” Hollister hung his head. “Do I feel responsible—yes, but it wasn’t my fault. None of it was supposed to happen like that.” He looked up at them. “Damian was my friend and I thought that with the right motivation …” He turned to look up at David. “I was only—” He stopped speaking. His eyes grew wide and his face pale. He looked ill.

“What happened, Mr. Hollister?” David asked him. “What were you only?”

“It wasn’t my fault,” he said in a low voice.

“What wasn’t your fault?”

“If you think—” he stammered. “All these years … I know who you are. I know what you did and you aren’t going to get away with it.”

“Get away with what?” Mac asked.

Hollister raised his voice. “If you think for one minute I’m going to take the fall for what you did—you are sadly mistaken. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

“Mr. Hollister, are you threatening me?” David asked.

“I may have set the wheels in motion to get them killed, but I certainly wasn’t the one who did it. I’m not responsible and I’m not taking the blame.” He pointed his finger up at David. “I’m personally going to make you pay for what you did.”

David stepped up to stand over Raymond Hollister. “You have no right to talk to me like that.”

Mac joined in. “This is the chief of police you’re talking to, Mr. Hollister.”

“I wasn’t even in the country when they were killed,” David said. “I had no reason to kill Genie, Jansen, or Wagner. Now I want to know who killed them.”

“Am I under arrest?” Raymond Hollister rose to his feet.

He had moved so fast that Gnarly jumped between him and David, stopping Raymond Hollister’s movement. He paused long enough for Mac to grab his arm.

“You just said that you had set the wheels in motion that led to Wagner’s murder,” Mac said. “That sounds like a confession to me.”

“But I didn’t kill him or Jansen.” Hollister turned back to David. “I want the animal who did punished, and I intend to do everything I can to help. But first, I need to make a couple of phone calls.”

“You can call from the station,” David said.

“Do you have any evidence to prove I killed them?” Hollister asked.

David looked over at Mac. He may have been the chief of police, but Mac had this conversation countless times. He knew best how to play it. Knowing that the only evidence they had was circumstantial, Mac slowly shook his head. They couldn’t even prove Raymond Hollister was in the area at the time of the murder.

A smirk crossed the agent’s face. “Tomorrow morning,” Hollister said. “I’ll come to your office tomorrow morning with the name of your killer.”

Before David could object or order him to go to the station with them, Raymond Hollister hurried across the lobby to the elevators and practically knocked a couple out of the way to get up to his room.

Mac turned to tell David. “Now that was weird.”

“Very.”

On the other side of the entrance, Mac saw Stan Gould’s limousine pulling away. He also saw Hector sighing with relief. Next to the security manager, Jeff Ingles was mopping his sweaty brow.

Chapter Ten

A white sedan with Maryland state government plates was in the parking lot when David pulled the chief’s cruiser into his reserved spot at the Spencer police department. “Who else did I tick off?” he asked.

“Look at it this way,” Mac said. “It can’t get any worse.”

In the back seat, Gnarly’s hackles were up. He clawed at the door for someone to let him out. When David opened the door, the shepherd shot out like a bullet shot from a gun.

“Did Fletcher order pizza again?” Mac spilled out of the cruiser and gave chase.

As soon as the station door opened, Gnarly scurried across the reception area to greet the intruder. He charged with such force that the other dog yelped while diving for safety behind her master, causing her to become entangled in the dog’s leash and tumble.

Bogie caught her in his arms before she hit the floor. “Gnarly, behave yourself!”

Mac grabbed Gnarly by the collar and held him back. “That’s no way to treat a guest.”

Deciding the visitor was friend and not foe, Gnarly sat down with a whine.

“Friend, Molly,” the white German Shepherd’s owner said. Patting her dog on the head, she gazed up. “Bogie didn’t tell me that the Spencer police department had a K-9 unit.” Seeing David, she locked her steel blue eyes on him.

In the moment of silence between them, the electricity was palatable.

Mac couldn’t imagine David being with a woman who wasn’t gorgeous. With his blond hair, blue eyes, and athletically slender build, the police chief had his pick of women. What red-blooded man in his position wouldn’t choose the most attractive beauties?

Chelsea took striking to a whole new level.

She was exceedingly slender—and flat chested as David had mentioned. Her platinum blonde hair, same shade as her brother’s, fell in a single wave to her shoulders. Her fair features seemed to border on albino, down to the lightest blue eyes that Mac had ever seen.

“Hello, Chelsea.” Noting Molly’s service vest, David said, “I didn’t know the Attorney General’s office had K-9s, either.”

“Molly doesn’t work for the Attorney General,” Chelsea said. “She works for me.”

“Well, Chelsea, if everything is taken care of, I’ll be on my way,” a man in a suit called out as he came down the hall from the rest rooms. He was a tall, muscular, handsome man.

Seeing the man who was obviously with Chelsea, David stood up tall and took on the stance of a man ready for a battle.

“Roger,” Chelsea said, “This is David O’Callaghan, he’s the chief of police and …” Realizing she didn’t know who Mac was, she paused.

“Mac Faraday.” Mac offered the man his hand. “And you are …”

“Roger Bennett,” he said. “I’m a friend of Chelsea’s. I happened to be going to WVU for a seminar and gave her a ride.” He turned to her. “Do you need a ride to the hospital?”

“I’ll give her a ride,” David said so quickly that everyone was startled. A glance from Mac told him that he had spoken too sharply. “I’m going there anyway to check on Riley, so I can drive her.”

“That’s okay,” Chelsea countered. “Roger can drop me off at the hospital. It’s on the way to Morgantown anyway.”

“Your message said you came
here
to the police station because you wanted to see me,” David said.

“That’s done and over with.” Chelsea turned to Roger. “Let’s go.”

David’s hands were now on his hips. “Why’d you come out here—”

“Bogie told me everything that I needed to know about Riley,” Chelsea said. “Besides, you’re busy investigating the Damian Wagner murders.”

“I’m going out to the hospital anyway.” David bit off every word.

Mac could see Chelsea’s friend Roger becoming increasingly nervous by the police chief’s agitation.

“After leaving the hospital I need to go find a hotel to stay at until I decide what to do about Riley,” Chelsea said.

“I can take you to a hotel,” David said. “No problem.”

“Then it’s settled,” Roger said. “I can go.” He turned to go to the door.

“No!” Chelsea said. “Stay!”

Like a little boy in trouble, Roger froze in place.

“Roger will take me to the hospital and I can take a cab to a hotel,” Chelsea said. “That way I won’t be any
embarrassment
to you.”

Judging by the emphasis she had put on the word embarrassment, everyone sensed that Chelsea had just ripped a bandage off an old wound.

Roger waved his hand like a child trying to get the teacher’s attention. “I’d really like to leave now.”

“Go!” David ordered.

“Stay!” Chelsea said.

David stepped up to her. His eyes locked on hers. “I’m driving you and that’s final.”

“I’m not going to impose on you,” she said through gritted teeth.

“You’re not,” he said. “I
want
to drive you.”

She shrugged. “If you insist.”

“Can I go now?” Roger asked.

“Yes,” David and Chelsea said in unison.

Not taking any chance on them changing their minds, Roger ran out the door and slammed it on his way out.

David gazed down into her face. “Good to see you, too, Chelsea. You look great.”

“You’re so full of it, David O’Callaghan,” she said.

Aware of all the eyes in the room watching them, David stepped back out of her space. “You don’t drive anymore?”

“The police told me I shouldn’t,” Chelsea said. “I was in a car accident seven years ago and was in a coma for four days. Since then, I have seizures. Not all the time. My last one was well over a year ago. But when they hit … That’s why I have Molly. She can sense when I’m going to have a seizure before it happens so that I can take my medication to stop it. Unfortunately, she can’t drive.”

“All Gnarly can sense is the arrival of food.” Mac noticed that while Chelsea was stroking Molly’s head, Gnarly was licking her ear. Patiently, Molly accepted the ear cleaning. “Gnarly, stop that.”

With a loud whine, Gnarly collapsed at Molly’s feet.

“I can drive you anywhere you need to go,” Mac said, “unless David objects.” He smiled at the blush that came to David’s cheeks.

“How about a motel?” In response to Mac’s shocked look, she laughed. “I meant for me to stay at while I’m here.”

“What about your house?” David asked.

“I sold that after Mom died,” she explained. “I had Riley declared dead three years ago and I had assumed he was. All of my Deep Creek Lake roots are gone.”

“Since you have Molly and you probably don’t know how long you need to stay,” Mac said, “how about if you stay at the Spencer Manor?” He ignored the glare that David shot in his direction.

“Spencer Manor?”

“Mac is Robin Spencer’s son,” Bogie said, “in case you didn’t know.”

“I’d take him up on that if I were you,” Tonya said. “It isn’t every girl who gets invited to stay at a mansion on the shores of Deep Creek Lake.”

Chelsea still looked uncertain.

“You’ll be safe,” Bogie assured her. “Mac’s taken.”

“Very taken,” Tonya said. “He’s engaged to Archie.”

“Archie?” Chelsea asked.

“Archie is a girl,” Mac explained. “We have plenty of room and I don’t think Gnarly is going to let Molly go.”

They found that Molly had lain down, and Gnarly had a paw draped across her shoulders and his head resting on her neck.

“She is fixed, isn’t she?” Worry crept into Mac’s tone.

“I hate to disappoint Gnarly, but she is,” Chelsea said.

Since he had ridden to the station with David, Mac was stuck with going along with them to the hospital to visit Riley. Molly had to go wherever Chelsea went, and Gnarly wasn’t about to let the new love of his life out of his sight. Mac was delegated to the back seat of the cruiser with two large dogs. At least Gnarly let him have the window seat on one side, and, a true gentle-dog, let Molly take the other window seat.

The on-duty working dog, Molly refused to display if the feeling was mutual or not.

Gnarly’s panting was steaming up the right side of Mac’s face.

“How did Riley look when you found him?” Chelsea asked once they were on the road running along the lake’s shore.

David and Mac were quiet.

“Surprisingly good for someone who has been living off the land,” Mac said. “I think he’s incredibly lucky to have survived all those years by himself.”

She looked over at David. “The news said he was eating garbage?”

“We found dead animal carcasses in the garage where he seemed to have holed himself up.”

“Then it’s true?”

“What?” David asked.

“Riley was living at the castle,” she said, “hiding out in the same place where Damian Wagner and those other people were killed. Did Riley do it?”

“No.”

“That’s what the news shows are saying,” she said.

“I don’t go by what a bunch of talking heads say,” David said. “I go by the evidence.”

“Well, if Riley was there…” she said, “and he disappeared before Wagner was there, then where was he when the murders happened—”

“He could be a witness,” Mac said. “The MOs of the murder don’t jive with how Riley would have killed them.”

“They found dead animals,” she said tearfully. “He must have killed them. How much of a jump is it, if he’s crazy, to imagine him killing—”

“They had broken necks or bite marks on them,” David said. “He killed them with his bare hands—not the same COD as Damian Wagner. If anything, Riley’s a witness.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear you say.”

In the back seat, Mac caught her sneaking a look over in David’s direction. When David turned his head to check the traffic in her direction, she jerked back and looked in the opposite direction.

This is going to be fun.
Mac smiled to himself.

David groaned when he pulled the cruiser up to the hospital to find the media camped out front.

“They all want to see my brother—the Wolf Man,” Chelsea said.

David drove on past the crowd and turned the corner. “We’ll go in the back employee entrance.”

Mac leaned forward in his seat. “Does Molly go everywhere with you?”

“She goes everywhere I go.” Chelsea turned and tilted her head toward Molly’s red service vest. “She’s certified, so the hospital won’t have any problem with her going inside. They’ll see her vest and know that she’s a service dog.”

“I’m thinking about Riley,” Mac said while David parked the cruiser. “He attacked Gnarly. Since he thinks he’s a wolf, he may try to attack Molly if you take her into the room.”

“They have him tied down,” David said. “He’s also heavily sedated. Maybe he won’t notice her.”

Mac stayed with Gnarly in the cruiser. Gnarly watched David and the white shepherd escort Chelsea inside. When the door shut, he let out a whine.

“She’ll be back.” Mac patted him on the head.

Gnarly’s ears perked up. Both Mac and the dog looked over their shoulders to see a man wearing a green jacket came around the corner and into the parking lot. He carried a red box with the logo of the local fried chicken takeout down the road. Between his arm and side, he clutched a takeout soft drink.

Licking his chops, Gnarly stomped his front feet and pressed closer to the window.

As he passed the dumpster, the man tossed the box inside, wiped his hands on the front of his coat, took the drink container, and sipped away while making his way to the hospital’s service entrance to go inside.

With a sigh, Mac sat back in his seat and closed his eyes to catch a nap, which Gnarly refused to let happen. Whining, Gnarly gazed at the dumpster and then back at his master to tell him telepathically to let him out to get the discarded fried chicken bones.

“No,” Mac said, when he received the message.

Gnarly continued to stare at him.

“I said no.”

Gnarly stomped his feet.

Mac answered with silence.

Gnarly pawed at his arm.

“Lie down.”

Gnarly answered by charging forward and slamming into Mac’s body. Incensed, Gnarly stomped and pawed at him until Mac threw open the door in order to escape the attack. He rolled and landed face down on the pavement. Now free, Gnarly ran across the parking lot and hurled himself at the dumpster, only to discover that it was too tall for him to jump inside.

Still on his knees, Mac laughed at him. “Serves you right!”

A van rolled into the lot and parked next to the dumpster. Recognizing Mac, who was climbing up to his feet, a tall bleached blonde with dark eyebrows descended on the man who, according to their sources, owned the castle where the wolf man had been staying and was the one who had found him. She stuck her microphone into Mac’s face. “What was your first thought, Mr. Faraday, when you found a wolf man living in your castle?”

Behind her, the camera operator focused in on Mac’s face.

“I have no comment.” Mac turned around to see Gnarly circling the van and the dumpster.

His lack of comment was not an acceptable answer for the journalists. Like a pack of wild hyenas who spot an elk separated from the herd, they stayed on him. “You had to have been aware of the bizarre history of supernatural occurrences at the Astaire Castle,” the journalist said. “In light of this latest incident, what are your plans for the castle?”

“I plan to help the police find out who killed Damian Wagner and his daughter and editor.” With a wave of his arm, Mac gestured for Gnarly to come to him so that they could get back into the cruiser.

“Does that mean you have ruled out the wolf man as a suspect?”

Forgetting about Gnarly, Mac turned to her. “He’s not a wolf man,” he said with force. “You make him sound like some creature. He’s a man—just like any of us—only he’s sick—and keeping in mind that he is a man—a human with family who care about him—he and his family deserve your respect for their privacy while he gets treatment and becomes well again so that maybe—just maybe he can help us find out what happened that night when Damian Wagner was killed.”

The journalist jumped on his statement so fast that her dark eyebrows jumped up into her bleached blonde bangs. “Then you consider him a witness?”

“I have nothing more to say.”

The camera operator burst out laughing.

The journalist turned to the camera. “What’s so funny?”

BOOK: The Murders at Astaire Castle (A Mac Faraday Mystery)
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